On Sunday, NNW Biathlon hosted MNCup#3 at the Nisswa range. Two events were held, a 4.5 km Sprint with 2 shooting stages followed by a 5 km Pursuit Format with 4 times in the range. In a Format event the start times are deducted from the time over the finish line.

In the Sprint, Little Falls Sophmore Jackson Grant, NNW, dominated in the Men’s side shooting 0,2 and finishing in 14:38. In second was Hunter Zupko, National Guard, also Little Falls, shooting 3,2 and finishing in 16:33.

In the Women’s field, Stormy Hegg, Wolfpack, Alexandria was first with 2,3 shooting finishing in 18:36. Emma Watson, Duluth Biathlon, shot 2,2 and finished in 18:56 for a close second.

This morning we groomed the race loops at the Nisswa range. Really worked up better than I expected. We will touch them up on Saturday am also.

There are a few windblown areas with some grass showing and the windy days brought down some pine needles on the camel humps..but otherwise should be great skiing! These courses will reward quick technique transitions, and good cornering skills. The snow will be cold with some ice mixed in—so really fast. Temps are forecast in the low 20’s.

I will send out a start list on Saturday for the Sprint. It will be randomly selected; while the following Pursuit format at 10 sec start intervals will be in the order of finish from the Sprint. Eleven athletes so far are planning on starting.

MNBiathlon is not a huge organization. We typically run around 30 to maybe 40 members, of which 20-25 or so are high school aged. So looking over the results from yesterdays huge event in Biwabik I was impressed!! As a team we had a lot of top 20 finishes where each field was up around 135 of each high school’s best skiers. Here are our finishers who had top 20 results:

My congrats to you all!! Training pays off! And keep in mind our goal is to still increase your ski speed by about 10% for most!! If I missed anyone- please accept my apologies—it is early for an old man!!